/ 


^ THE DISCOVERY 


OF 


H 


RISKS. 


READ BEFORE THE NEBRASKA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 


APRIL 16. 1880. 


BY 


JAMES ¥. SAVAGE. 






























I 


t /zi 

■VdS/ 





wiktowti 







E. H. ^ M. MORTIMER 
PRINTERS; 
OMAHA, NEBRASKA. 








'/"/a£ ' 


The Discovery of Nebraska. 


W E are apt to look upon Nebraska as a young 
state; young in its geological formation, in its 
political existence and in its historical records. For 
descriptions of its soil, its climate, its fruits or its in¬ 
habitants, few have sought to look further back than 
the commencement of the present century, and the 
published memorials of its history prior to the ad¬ 
vent of the French trappers and traders have been 
thought too meagre to serve as a basis for any exact 

account. But hidden away in the lumber rooms of 

. . . 

wealthy Spanish and French families, arid piled on 
the shelves of national libraries in Paris, Madrid 
and Mexico, are hosts of letters, journals and re¬ 
ports which are gradually emerging from their se¬ 
clusion and undergoing the scrutiny of acute and 
practised eyes. The documents recently edited by 
M. Margry, in Paris, and now in course of publica¬ 
tion by the United States Government, throw a flood 
of light upon early French discoveries and explora¬ 
tions in the West. And when the vast libraries of 



4 


all the nations which took part in those adventurous 
travels shall give up their dead treasures, we have 
reason to hope that we shall be able to add many 
years to the authentic history of our state. 

I purpose to collect and present, this evening, a 
few of the reasons we have for believing that four 
score years before the pilgrims landed on the ven¬ 
erable shores of Massachusetts; sixty-eight years 
before Hudson discovered the ancient and beautiful 
river which still bears his name; sixty-six years be¬ 
fore John Smith, with his cockney colonists, sailed 
up a summer stream which they named after James 
the First of England, and commenced the settlement 
of what was afterwards to be Virginia; twenty- 
three years before Shakspeare was born; when 
Queen Elizabeth was a little girl, and Charles the 
Fifth sat upon the united throne of Germany and 
Spain, Nebraska was discovered; the peculiarities 
of her soil and climate noted, her fruits and produc¬ 
tions described, and her inhabitants and animals 
depicted. If the arguments and citations in support 
of this theory shall prove more dull and prosaic 
than the custom of recent times requires the popular 
lecture to be, I shall still be able to indulge a hope 
that among those whose nativity or residence has 
caused them to entertain a peculiar affection for this 
state, and especially among those whose pursuits 
have led them to understand and appreciate the 


5 


value of historical studies, the intrinsic interest and 
importance of my topic may prove some excuse for 
the bald narration of facts to which I shall be 
obliged to subject your jDatience. 

There is hardly any expedition of modern times, 
around which hangs so much of the glamour of ro¬ 
mantic mystery, as that undertaken about the middle 
of the sixteenth century for the purpose of discover¬ 
ing the seven cities of the buffalo and the land of 
Quivera. Although at least four contemporaneous 
narratives of this remarkable march have reached 
us, it is singular that hardly any two recent writers 
agree either in the location of the seven cities or the 
ultimate terminus of the journey. The cities of 
Cibola have been placed by different investigators 
at the ruins now called Zuni, in New Mexico, at a 
point about one hundred miles east of that spot, and 
on the Rio del Chaco, about an equal distance to the 
north. The country called Quivera is still more 
rich in its variety of locations. The vicinity of 
Guaynias on the Gulf of California, the ruins now 
called Gran Quivera in New Mexico, different points 
in Colorado and the region of Baxter Springs in 
Kansas, are but a few of the spots suggested for this 
forgotten land. I shall endeavor to show that none 
of these answer the conditions of the narratives to 
which I have alluded, and that the land of Quivera 
was situated in what is now the state of Nebraska. 


6 


It is true that the only discovery of our state, 
which can be regarded in any sense as permanent, 
that which was followed by the usual horde of ad¬ 
venturers, traders and explorers, dates from a long 
subsequent period. The city of St. Louis was estab¬ 
lished in the year 1764, and in the preceding sum¬ 
mer its founder, Laclede Liguest, visited the Mis¬ 
souri. Gradually the advancing wave of commerce 
crept up that river, until it reached the most powerful 
and mighty of the savage nations of that day, the 
proud, wealthy, populous and pugnacious tribe of 
the Omahas, with their famous chief Wash-ing-guh - 
sah-ba , or the Blackbird, whose prowess Irving has 
celebrated, and whose lineal descendants still exer¬ 
cise, on a little reservation, hereditary rule over the 
docile handful to which that great nation is reduced. 

We catch an earlier glimpse of this region from 
one who had enlisted in the service of God instead 
of the service of Mammon. There was found a few 
years since, in the archives of St. Mary’s College in 
Montreal, the identical map which Father Marquette 
prepared of his voyage down the Mississippi, exe¬ 
cuted by his own hand, and bearing all the marks 
of authenticity. Upon this map, drawn in the year 
of our Lord 1673, appears the territory which now 
forms the state of Nebraska, delineated with remark¬ 
able accuracy. The general course of the Missouri is 
given to a point far north of this latitude; the Platte 


7 


River is laid down in almost its exact position, and 
among the Indian tribes which he enumerates as 
scattered about this region, we find such names as 
Panas, Mahas, Otontantes, which it is not difficult to 
translate into Pawnees, Omahas, and perhaps Otoes. 
It is not without a thrill of interest that a Nebraskan 
can look upon the frail and discolored parchment 
upon which, for the first time in the history of the 
world, these words were written. 

So full and accurate is this new-found map that, 
had we not the word of Father Marquette to the 
contrary, it would not be difficult to believe that 
during his journey he personally visited the Platte 
River. It was a dream of his, which, had his young 
life been spared, would probably have been realized. 
But here we will let the good father speak for him¬ 
self. He is describing his descent of the Mississippi. 
The Pekitanoui River, of which he speaks, is the 
Missouri. 

“We descend, following the course of the river 
“ towards the other called Pekitanoui, which empties 
“into the Mississippi, coming from the northwest, 
“of which I shall have something considerable to 
“say after what I have remarked of this river. * * 

“As we were discoursing, sailing gently down a 
“still, clear water, we heard the noise of a rapid into 
“ which we were about to plunge. I have never seen 
‘‘anything more frightful: a mass of large trees, 


8 


“with roots and branches entire, real floating islands 
“came rushing from the mouth of the river Peki- 
“tanoui with such impetuosity that we could not 
“venture across without serious risk. The agitation 
“was so great that the water was all muddy, and 
“could not get clear. 

“ Pekitanoui is a considerable river, which, coming 
“from very far in the northwest, empties into the 
“Mississippi. Many Indian towns are ranged along 
“this river, and I hope by its means to make the 
“discovery of the Red or California Sea. 

“We judged by the direction the Mississippi takes 
“that if it keeps on the same course it has its mouth 
“ in the gulf of Mexico : it would be very advanta- 
“ geous to find that which leads to the south sea to¬ 
wards California; and this, as I said, I hope to 
“find by Pekitanoui; following the account which 
“the Indians have given me, for from them I learn 
“that advancing up this river for five or six days, 
“you come to a beautiful prairie twenty or thirty 
“leagues long, which you must cross to the north- 
“ west. It terminates at another little river on which 
“ you can embark, it not being difficult to transport 
“canoes over so beautiful a country as that prairie. 
“This second river runs southwest for ten or fifteen 
“leagues, after which it enters a small lake, which is 
“the source of another deep river running to the 
“west, where it empties into the sea. I have hardly 


9 


“any doubt that this is the Red Sea, and I do not 
“despair of one day making the discovery, if God 
“ does me this favor and grants me health, in order 
“ to be able to publish the gospel to all the nations 
“ of this New World who have so long been plunged 
“in heathen darkness.” 

The brave and pious heart was not to be cheered 
by the discoveries he had hoped for; the great high¬ 
way to the California Sea was to be travelled in far 
later days and by another race than his; still, as his 
earnest voice comes down to us through the centuries, 
we can see that in spite of all the mistakes into which 
his untutored geographers led him, he made a shrewd 
guess at the future pathway of commerce. 

But now let us turn again from the humble and 
unpretending labors of this member of the society 
of Jesus, and gaze upon a more gorgeous spectacle. 
Let us look back three centuries and a half to the 
province of Mexico, or, as it was then called, New 
Spain. For the bare prairies of Illinois and the 
rocky shores of the lakes we have the luxuriance of 
tropic vegetation; for the holy vestments of a Cath¬ 
olic priest we have the burnished armor and the 
dancing plumes of a Spanish cavalier; for the low 
splash of the paddle and the ripple of a bark canoe 
we have the noisy clank of steel, the neighing of 
horses, the shouting of captains and the heavy tread 
of mighty cavalcades. It is nineteen years after the 


10 


conquest of Mexico by Cortes, that brilliant and 
heartless commander, of whose ambition, avarice, 
treachery and cruelty, says an old chronicler of the 
time,* “God will have kept a better account than we 
have/’ Sometimes feared, sometimes hated and al¬ 
ways distrusted in his lifetime and by his own coun¬ 
trymen, more than one Spanish officer was sent out 
while he still remained in Mexico, to watch his career 
and check his unbridled extravagance. Of these, 
was one Nunez de Guzman, a rival and an enemy of 
Cortes, who governed the northern portion of Mex¬ 
ico, and who burned to excel the dethroned captain 
in the brilliancy of his discoveries and the magnitude 
of his conquests. “The life of the Spanish discov¬ 
erers,” says Prescott, “was one long day-dream. 
Illusion after illusion chased one another like the 
bubbles which the child throws off from his pipe, as 
bright as beautiful, and as empty. They lived in a 
world of enchantment.” 

Among the slaves of this governor was a Texas 
Indian, who had, perhaps, cunning enough to per¬ 
ceive that his own success lay in ministering to his 
master’s ambition, and ingenuity enough to concoct 
a tale, partly true, doubtless, which should excite his 
curiosity and inflame his lust for gold. Be that as 
it may, he came to his master one day with this 
strange and startling revelation. His father, he 


* Las Casas. 


11 


said, had been a merchant, and traded far to the 
north, carrying with him for barter the rich plum¬ 
age of tropic birds, and receiving in exchange vast 
quantities of gold and silver. When a youth, he 
added, he had sometimes accompanied his father 
on these excursions, and they had visited seven 
cities, which might compare in wealth, population 
and magnificence with the city of Mexico itself; 
that whole streets blazed with the shops of gold 
and silversmiths, and that those metals were so com¬ 
mon as to be held in slight esteem; that rare and 
precious stones abounded, and that the inhabitants 
were gorgeously attired in rich stuffs and lived in all 
the ease and luxury that wealth could bestow. 

Whether this Texan (the first of whom we have 
any record) had really a recollection of cities which 
seemed to his inexperienced childhood as magnifi¬ 
cent and grand as the dreams of the avaricious 
Spaniard; whether he sought to ingratiate himself 
with his taskmasters by stories which lie knew they 
would seriously incline to hear, or whether thus 
early in the history of the country he had acquired 
the prevailing Western habit of exaggeration, par¬ 
ticularly where gold and silver mines are the subject 
of discourse, we can only guess; but the sequel will 
show that his gorgeous palaces and brilliant work¬ 
shops were but the fictitious creations of a lively im¬ 
agination, or the dim remembrance of an old tradition. 


12 


This was the origin of the story of the mysterious 
“ seven cities of Cibola,” which, with their vague 
and visionary splendor, excited the curiosity and 
inflamed the avarice of the Spanish conquerors for 
so many years. Efforts were made to reach them, 
but the mountain ranges and the desert plains 
guarded their secret faithfully, and the cities for 
nearly a decade remained known only through the 
romantic exaggerations of the Texas serf. 

But Spanish interest in this fabulous region was 
revived by a story of hardship and toil which has 
rarely been equalled in the history of adventure. 
In the year 1536, four wayfarers, half naked, worn 
with toil, spent with hunger, thirst, heat, cold, 
shipwrecks, storms, battles and disease, reached the 
city of Mexico from the sierras and sandy plains of 
the North. They were a Spaniard named Cabeza 
de Yaca and his three companions, one of them a 
Moor called Estevanico or Stephen. Eight years 
before, they had landed with some four hundred 
companions on the peninsula of Florida for the pur¬ 
pose of exploring that unknown country. Hostile 
tribes, starvation and toil had done their work so 
thoroughly that of the four hundred only this per¬ 
ishing sample remained. They had traversed the 
whole continent, had been the first of civilized beings 
to gaze upon “a great river coming from the north,” 
which was afterwards to be called the Mississippi, 


13 


had penetrated the northwest through parts of Kan¬ 
sas and Colorado, and thence turning southwardly 
had made their way through New Mexico and Ari¬ 
zona to friends and countrymen. 

They too had their marvellous tales of opulence 
and pomp to tell. During their wanderings west of 
the Mississippi, they had heard of rich and populous 
cities, with lofty dwellings and shops glittering with 
gold and silver and precious stones, of a people liv¬ 
ing in affluence, jiartially civilized, acquainted with 
the arts and inhabiting a fertile and beautiful coun¬ 
try. 

Straightway a small force under the leadership of 
Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan monk, and guided by 
Stephen the Moor, was sent out to discover and re¬ 
port upon these mysterious cities, and pave the way 
for Spanish colonization. Friar Marcos, the com¬ 
mander, was of a credulous and yielding disposition, 
and he allowed the Moor to push forward ahead of 
the main body, so that he reached the seven cities 
while the friar was hardly half way there. Stephen 
had forgotten the hardships and trials of his eight 
years of wandering, and the favors heaped upon him 
by the people whom he was now coming to despoil. 
But lie remembered well their gentleness and their 
treasures. Presuming upon the former, he robbed 
them of the latter with an unsparing hand. The 
mild and pacific natives bore these indignities with 


14 


a patience and forbearance well calculated to excite 
the scorn of a Christian people; but when the libid¬ 
inous Moor, swollen with pride and power and suc¬ 
cess, attempted to lay his unhallowed hands upon 
their wives and daughters, they found it more diffi¬ 
cult to excuse his irregularities. So they killed him, 
and sent his companions back upon the road they 
had come. These, flying from the scene of their 
atrocities, met Marcos de Niza about two hundred 
miles away, and communicated to him their doleful 
story. The holy father declares that, notwithstand¬ 
ing the consternation their tale produced, he pursued 
his course, and approached so near the seven cities 
that from an eminence hard by he could look down 
upon their lofty roofs shining in the sun, and see 
the evidences of wealth upon every hand. But the 
private soldiers of the expedition strongly intimated 
that the fate of Stephen the Moor so far cooled his 
courage and moderated his ambition, that he forth¬ 
with made his way with considerable precipitation 
back to the place whence he had started. All agreed, 
however, that the seven cities of Cibola did, in truth, 
exist, and that the tales told of their richness and 
grandeur were so far from being mere figments of 
the imagination that they fell short of the reality. 
Of course, another and more powerful expedition 
was decided upon. For its command the viceroy of 
Mexico nominated Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, 


15 


who liad succeeded Nunez de Guzman in the govern¬ 
ment of the northern province. 

Coronado was a Spanish cavalier, born in the city 
of Salamanca, where he had received a good educa¬ 
tion, and had improved the advantages which wealth 
and gentle birth naturally confer. Intrepid, ambi¬ 
tious, of pleasing and ingratiating manners, skilled 
in all manly and martial exercises, he would have 
come down to us as a model of the brave, adventur¬ 
ous, avaricious and cruel commanders of his age, but 
for a superstitious belief in evil omens and unlucky 
signs, which sometimes prevented him from seizing 
hold of success even when it was fairly within his 
grasp. 

In his youthful days Coronado had made the ac¬ 
quaintance of an Arabian sage, who, after long study 
and travel in the East, where he had collected the 
knowledge and experience of ages, had taken up his 
abode in the classic and congenial city of Salamanca. 
This spare and wrinkled devotee of science possessed 
great skill in the kindred pursuits of astrology and 
necromancy, to which he added the marvellous gift 
of divination. To him the young Spaniard applied 
with a request that the mystery of his future life 
might be revealed to him. 

After consulting his sacred parchments, and com¬ 
muning with the supernatural beings who had deigned 
to impart to him their wisdom, the astrologer at an 


16 


appointed time received Coronado in his retreat, 
fragrant with incense and covered with mathematical 
diagrams and cabalistic characters. The stars in 
their courses, he said, and the mystic intelligences, 
who reveal future events to mortals, had foretold that 
the fiery young student should one day become the 
omnipotent lord of a great and distant country; but 
the portents thenceforward were gloomy and sinister 
—a fall from a horse would imperil his life. We 
shall see in the sequel what effect this prediction had 
upon the early settlement of our state. 

Coming to Mexico while still in the vigorous 
strength of early manhood, our hero was fortunate 
enough to win the affections of a daughter of one of 
the Spanish dignitaries who had been sent out to 
take part in the government of that province. Es¬ 
trada had been the royal treasurer and in charge of 
the finances. For a time even, while the charges 
against Cortes were a subject of investigation, the 
reins of government had devolved upon him. He 
appears to have been a man of small mind, but ar¬ 
rogant and dictatorial, as small minds are apt to be; 
and not averse to using his office as a source of 
wealth, as small minds have done before and since 
his time. This pompous old grandee had, like Po- 
lonius and Jephthah— 

“ One fair daughter, and no more, 

The which he loved passing well.” 


17 


We catch but a glimpse here and there, through 
these dry and musty old chronicles, of the sweet face 
of Beatrix d’Estrada, hut we see enough of her to 
know that she was beautiful and accomplished, 
graceful in person, refined in mind, and as different 
from her father as Jessica from Shylock. And so 
when she and Coronado met, we behold again the 
picture which belongs to no age or time— 

“ Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always; 

Love, immortal and young in tin. endless succession of 
lovers.” 

Marriage did not cool the ardor of the ambitious 
young warrior. He remained passionately fond of 
his handsome wife during the whole of his stirring 
and adventurous career; and her wealth and station 
served to elevate him above the position in which 
his own good qualities would have placed him. 

Early in the spring of 1540 the expedition of 
Coronado, composed of three hundred Spaniards 
and some eight hundred natives, set forth from their 
rendezvous with bright anticipations and sanguine 
hopes. These were somewhat dimmed and dampened 
by the hardships of the way, for the country was 
rough, mountainous and desert; and now and then, 
notwithstanding the marvels of the seven cities 
which they expected to see at the end of their route, 
distrust and homesickness overmastered their curi¬ 
osity. Once a soldier rushing in to Coronado, in a 


18 


well-counterfeited agony of apprehension and terror, 
declared that while he was bathing in a mountain 
stream, the Devil in his proper shape (for in those 
days they had not lost belief in a personal devil) 
had tempted him, saying, “Kill your general, and 
you shall marry donna Beatrix, his beautiful wife, 
and I will endow you with boundless wealth.” This 
was touching the general in two tender points, his 
superstition and his uxoriousness; so to prevent the 
fulfillment of the devil’s desire, he ordered that the 
honest and sorely tempted soldier should remain at 
Culiacan, which was the precise object for which the 
cunning rogue had invented the story. 

But when at last, after a tedious and toilsome 
march, the long expected seven cities of Cibola were 
reached, the whole army, as the old chronicler tells 
us, broke out into maledictions against Friar Marcos 
de Niza, who had so deceived them. “God grant,” 
he charitably adds, “that he may feel none of them.” 
His highly-colored tales had all proved false. There 
were farms in Mexico better than Cibola; the seven 
cities were seven hamlets, the houses were small, gold 
was not found, the minerals were of but little value, 
and in short, the jmissant realms and populous cities 
which he had promised, the metals, the gems and the 
rich stuffs of which he had boasted in all his dis¬ 
courses, had faded like an insubstantial pageant into 
thin air. 


\ 


19 


But tlie fitting out of the expedition had cost too 
much money, and its starting had been heralded with 
too much boasting to allow it to come thus speedily 
to an ignoble end. Were there not other cities, 
Coronado began to inquire, which it would be pro¬ 
fitable to visit? The natives, always ready to lend 
to the Spaniards a helping hand out of their coun¬ 
try, were not slow to answer this question in the 
affirmative. Two hundred and fifty miles to the 
eastward, they said, was a rich, peaceful and popu¬ 
lous province, where their desires for wealth and 
their ambition for power might be gratified to the 
fullest extent. Thither Coronado led his little army, 
reaching a point which even to this day is readily 
identified by its natural characteristics and by its 
ruined cities and villages with the country which is 
now the eastern portion of the territory of New 
Mexico, watered by the Rio Grande and the Pecos, 
and not far south of the city of Santa Fe. 

The welcome which the gentle and kindly natives 
of this region gave to their invaders was so cordial 
and sincere that it seems sometimes, to weak and 
sentimental humanitarians of the present day, almost 
unfair and ungenerous for the Spaniards to plunder 
and kill them afterwards. But those old warriors 
were made of stern and unrelenting stuff. They 
were met by the inhabitants of the peaceful villages 
with warm demonstrations of friendship, great store 


20 


of victuals, large quantities of stuffs and the blue 
turquoise of tlie country; they were serenaded with 
the quaint music of their drums and flutes. “Some¬ 
times,” says one of the historians of the march, 
“ they sought to touch my garments and called me 
Hayota, which, in their language, signifieth a man 
come from Heaven.” 

As a recompense for these hospitable attentions, 
the Spaniards, who had been instructed by the vice¬ 
roy of Mexico to “let these people understand that 
there was a God in heaven and an emperor on earth,” 
first imprisoned several of their chief men on some 
frivolous pretext, and then by way of diversion 
burned one of their villages. These things, says 
the chronicler, caused some dissatisfaction, which 
was not diminished by a requisition of the general 
for cloth enough to furnish new suits for his entire 
army. Winter was just coming on, and the poor 
natives begged for a little time to comply with this 
demand, so that it might not bear too severely upon 
them, but they were pressed so hard that they were 
forced to give up their own scanty garments to com¬ 
plete the desired tale. If the soldiers who accom¬ 
panied the collectors were not content with the cloth¬ 
ing supplied to them, and saw an Indian who had 
something better, they forced an immediate exchange, 
without troubling themselves about the rank or 
condition of those whom they despoiled. Such con- 


21 


duct, it is gravely added, irritated the natives ex¬ 
ceedingly. 

But they bore these wrongs and indignities with 
submission, if not in silence, till the last and crown¬ 
ing insult was added to them. This ignorant and 
barbarous people had among their peculiarities a 
strong and exclusive love for their wives; and so 
jealous were they, after their experience with the 
dissolute Moor, of the rude eyes of the Spanish sol¬ 
diery, that they carefully concealed their females, 
immuring them in such strict seclusion that Coro¬ 
nado complained, after a long residence at Cibola, 
that of their females he had only been able to see 
two grey and withered old women. It chanced one 
day that an officer, whose name even the soldier who 
tells the story is ashamed to hand down to its de¬ 
served infamy, saw peeping from an upper window 
the bright and curious eyes of a comely woman. 
Dismounting from his horse, he strode into the 
apartment, from which outcries and shrieks of agony 
were presently heard. The wronged husband and 
chiefs of the village waited upon Coronado, and 
with humbleness and in sadness presented their com¬ 
plaint. The troops and retainers of the camp were 
paraded, but the simple minded Indian failed to 
recognize the assailant; probably, it is hinted, be¬ 
cause he had changed his garments. The animal he 
rode, however, was pointed out and positively iden- 


22 


tified, but its owner being called upon, boldly denied 
the charge. “ Perhaps,” we are told, “ the Indian 
was mistaken, but at any rate he was obliged to return 
without haying obtained justice.” 

The next morning the natives of the village were 
in arms and rebellion. Barricading their houses 
with logs, and secure behind their battlements of 
stone the cowardly rascals kept their foes at bay 
with flights of arrows for two days; and it was not 
until the Spaniards had managed to dig under the 
walls and set fire to the town that they were obliged 
to surrender. Even then, smoked as they were, they 
would not submit until the Spanish officers had 
promised them quarter, whereupon they laid down 
their weapons. Being secured and guarded, it was 
concluded, notwithstanding their surrender, to burn 
them alive by way of setting an example to other 
refractory villages. But when the prisoners saw the 
preparations for their burning, they seized the bil¬ 
lets of wood collected for the ante-mortem cremation, 
and made so stout a defence witli them, that it became 
necessary for the Spanish cavalry to ride in among 
them sword in hand. As the slaughter took place in 
an open, level plain, not many of the natives escaped; 
but the few who were fortunate enough to do so, did 
great injury to the Spaniards by reporting that they 
disregarded the usages of warfare and violated truces. 

As the winter was an uncommonly severe one, 


23 


snow falling to a great depth, and ice sealing up the 
rivers, the Spaniards expressed a willingness to over¬ 
look all that had passed, and to grant a full pardon 
and safe conduct to all who would come in and sub¬ 
mit to the invaders; but the Indians responded 
that it would be useless to make treaties with people 
who did not keep faith, and unwise to surrender to 
an enemy which burned its prisoners of war. So siege 
was laid to another village. Here, however, the inhab¬ 
itants were better prepared for defence, and for fifty 
days stubbornly resisted the most daring and gallant 
attacks. But deprived of water they suffered untold 
and terrible agonies. The falls of snow within their 
courtyards were soon exhausted. They tried to dig 
a well, but its sides caved in and buried the work¬ 
men. So, with a forlorn courage which, if they 
were not copper colored, might excite our sympathy, 
they built a great fire, into which they cast their 
mantles, feathers, turquoises and all their little stores 
of finery, that the strangers might not possess them; 
made a desperate sortie with their women and chil¬ 
dren in the midst; and not one escaped the edge of 
the sword, the hoofs of the horses or the cold waves 
of the Rio Grande. Most of them the Spaniards 
mercifully slew; the wounded were spared to become 
slaves. 

Thus this simple, loving, virtuous people, who had 
greeted Coronado with the perfume of flowers and 


24 


the soft music of their flutes, came to understand 
that there was a God in heaven and an emperor on 
earth. 

Not unfrequently has it happened in the history 
of the world, that when the need of a nation is the 
sorest, a saviour rises up among them; and thus it 
was with the unhappy and oppressed natives of these 
valleys. One of their number, willing to sacrifice 
his life for the salvation of the rest, suddenly ap¬ 
peared before Coronado with much mystery in his 
movements and a pretended hostility to the natives. 
His description of rich countries and large cities, re¬ 
mote from the secluded valley of the Pecos, surpassed 
all previous revelations. He came, he said, from a 
land far to the northeast, where there was a river 
seven miles in width. Within its depths were fish as 
large as horses. Upon its broad bosom floated canoes 
which carried twenty oarsmen on each side; and huge 
vessels with sails, which bore upon their prow a 
golden eagle, and on the poop a sumptuous dais, 
whereupon their lords were wont to seat themselves 
beneath a canopy of cloth of gold. That every day 
the monarch of this favored region, named Tatarrax, 
long-bearded, gray-haired and rich, took his noon¬ 
day sleep in a garden of roses, under a huge spread¬ 
ing tree, to the branches of which were suspended 
innumerable golden bells, which sounded in exqui¬ 
site harmony when shaken by the wind; that this 


25 


king prayed by means of a string of beads, and 
worshipped a cross of gold and the image of a 
woman, the queen of heaven; that throughout the 
land the commonest utensils were of wrought silver, 
and the bowls, plates and porringers of beaten gold. 
This land of plenty, he said, was the great kingdom 
of Quivera, and thither he waited to conduct his 
white friends whenever they should be pleased to ac¬ 
company him. He talked with so much assurance 
and sustained their rude tests of cross-examination 
so well, that Coronado’s oft-shaken faith was again 
established. It is true there were not wanting sus¬ 
picions of the integrity of this new found friend. 
It was evident that he had some secret communica¬ 
tion with the natives. One soldier, to whom ablu¬ 
tion was probably a forgotten luxury, declared that 
he had seen him with his face in a washbasin full of 
water, talking with the devil. Still his disclosures 
were so specific, and their truth so desirable, that it 
was determined (all necessary precautions having 
been taken that he should not escape) to trust to his 
guidance. 

So, on the 5th day of May, in the year 1541, Co¬ 
ronado and his army quitted the valleys they had 
pacified and Christianized so thoroughly, crossed the 
Pecos Kiver and soon entered upon the treeless and 
pathless prairies of what is now the Indian territory 
and the state of Kansas. Through mighty plains 


26 


and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome arid bare of 
wood, so that they made great heaps of buffalo dung 
to guide them on their return, and in spite of all 
their precautions were constantly losing stragglers 
from the camp, they made their way for eight hun¬ 
dred miles northeastwardly to the banks of a con¬ 
siderable river, which could have been no other than 
the Arkansas. 

Each one, says Castaneda, a credulous, honest, sin¬ 
cere and pious private soldier, who has, with others, 
told us the story of this march, was charged to mea¬ 
sure the daily progress made by counting his steps. 
The picture which we can fancy to ourselves of this 
dusty band plodding its way through the long sum¬ 
mer days over the Kansas prairies, grim, silent and 
arithmetical, has something in it of the ludicrous as 
well as the pathetic. Still, our adventurers were 
enabled to enliven their dreary computations by an 
occasional indulgence in their favorite pastime of 
robbery. Once finding a village with an enormous 
quantity of skins, they cleaned it out so completely 
that in a quarter of an hour there was not one to be 
found. The Indians, we are told, tried in vain to 
save them, and the women and children wept, for 
they had believed that the Spaniards would not take 
their skins, and that they would be content with 
blessing them as Cabeza de Yaca and his compan¬ 
ions had done when they had passed that way. 


27 


The suspicions, which had from the first attached 
to their guide, had been spreading and increasing in 
intensity. It was noticed that when they met with 
the wandering nomads of the plains, if the Turk, as 
they called him,* was the first to converse with them, 
they confirmed all his stories, and pointed to the 
eastward as the true course; while if communication 
was prevented, the tribes knew nothing of the riches 
and splendor of the land of Quivera, and insisted 
that that country lay to the north and not to the east. 

Coronado therefore seeing that the Turk had de¬ 
ceived him, that provisions began to fail, and that, 
except the meat of the buffalo, there was no prospect 
of obtaining more in the country round about, con¬ 
voked his captains and lieutenants in a council of 
war, to determine upon their future course. It was 
there decided that the general, with thirty of his 
bravest and best mounted men and six foot soldiers, 
should proceed northward in search of Quivera, 
while the main army should return to the vicinity 
of the Pecos Kiver. The soldiers protested with 
many supplications against this separation, but Co¬ 
ronado was inflexible, and he started north with 
guides which he had taken from the roving Indians 
of the plains, and the unhappy Turk securely bound; 

* From a fancied resemblance to the people of that nation, some say, 
though it seems more probable that it was a name given to him after the dis¬ 
covery of his faithlessness. 


28 


while the army, after slaughtering great numbers of 
the buffalo for their sustenance, set out upon their 
homeward route. 

Northward then, from the Arkansas River, for 
many weary and anxious hours, the little band which 
accompanied the adventurous general pursued its 
way over the Kansas plains. July had come, the 
days were long and hot, and the sultry nights crept 
over the primeval prairie, seeming to rise like a 
shadowy and threatening spectre out of the grass. 
But stout hearts and good horses brought them at 
last to the southern boundary of Nebraska. And 
here along the Platte River they found the long 
sought kingdom of Quivera; here was Tatarrax, 
the hoary headed old ruler of the land. But alas 
for the vanity of human expectations! the only pre¬ 
cious metal they saw was a copper plate hanging to 
the old chiefs breast, by which he set great store; 
there were no musical bells, no gilded eagle, no sil¬ 
ver dishes, no rosary, no image of the Virgin, no 
cross, no crown. In the midst of his disappointment, 
Coronado took a melancholy pleasure in hanging the 
Turk who had so egregiously misguided him; and 
that barbaric Curtius, after boldly avowing that he 
knew of no gold, that he had brought the invaders 
into the wilderness to perish with hunger and hard¬ 
ship, and that he had done this to rid the peaceful 
dwellers in the Rio Grande and Pecos valleys of 


29 


their hated presence, met his fate with a stoicism 
which the Spaniards called despair and remorse. 

Here, then, upon the southern boundary of this 
state, at a point not yet easily ascertainable, but 
doubtless between Gage County on the east and 
Furnas on the west, Coronado set foot upon the soil 
of Nebraska, and here, busied with observations and 
explorations, he remained for twenty-five days. 

I have already adverted to the fact that this loca¬ 
tion of the northern terminus of his march has not 
met with universal acceptation. The arguments, 
however, in support of the theory seem to me unan¬ 
swerable.* Let us briefly examine them. 

It is unimportant for the purpose of our investi¬ 
gation whether we fix the site of the cities of Cibola 
at Zuni with General Simjison, at Acoma with Em¬ 
ory and Abert or on the Chaco with Mr. Morgan. 
The last place visited by Coronado, before he emerged 
from the mountains to the plains, was Cicuye, which 
is described as a well-fortified village, with houses 
of four stories, in a narrow valley between pine clad 
mountains and near a stream well stocked with fish. 
These features point so unmistakably to what is now 
known as old Pecos, on the river of the same name, 

* The view I have taken of Coronado's march was suggested by Mr. 
Gallatin, and has been supported by General Simpson. See the latter’s ex¬ 
cellent paper on this subject in the Smithsonian Report for 1869. I think, 
however, that the General has placed the northernmost point reached much 
too far to the eastward. 


30 


that no one can visit those desolate and melancholy 
ruins and remain unconvinced. The four stories 
may even now be distinguished by the careful obser¬ 
ver; the place is still admirably fortified both by 
nature and art against any assault not aided by ar¬ 
tillery; it is apparently completely hemmed in by 
mountains, and among the stone hatchets, hammers, 
arrow-heads and bits of turquoise, which the curious 
may still find there, are not unfrequently to be seen 
the grooved stones which the Indians used as sinkers 
for their fishing nets. Some, however, have founded 
an objection upon the statement of Castaneda that 
after leaving that place, the army did not reach the 
Cicuye River which flowed near Cicuye and took its 
name from that place, until the fourth day; and 
General Simpson, though he thinks that no other 
place than Pecos “in so many respects suits the con¬ 
ditions of the problem,” is inclined to get over the 
difficulty by supposing that the river referred to was 
the Gallinas, which it might require four days to 
reach. With the utmost deference, however, to the 
opinion of so learned and skillful an explorer, I 
venture to suggest that it is unnecessary to suppose 
that four days were occupied in the march to the 
crossing. Supposing Coronado to have left Pecos 
near the close of the first day (by no means an un¬ 
usual time for the commencement of a long expedi¬ 
tion) and to have reached the crossing on the morn- 


i 


31 


ing of the fourth, then but little more than two days 
would have been occupied on the way. Now, al¬ 
though the Pecos River flows very near the Pecos 
village it is, in fact, not visible from that place, and 
by the old Santa Fe trail it is twenty-two miles to 
the ford at San Miguel. The railroad crosses five or 
six miles below the trail, and there is still another 
crossing some ten miles beyond at Anton Chico. 
Inasmuch as to reach the nearest of these points, 
through the difficult country about Pecos, might well 
have consumed two days, it seems to me that the 
paragraph in question confirms, instead of opposing, 
his views. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that 
as the evident object of the Turk was to lead the 
troops as far to the eastward as possible, he would, 
if practicable, take them to some lower point than 
San Miguel on the Santa Fe trail. There seem, 
therefore, to be conclusive grounds for believing that 
Cicuye and Pecos are identical. 

From Cicuye the main body marched about seven 
hundred miles northeastwardly to a considerable 
river. As all the narratives of the expedition concur 
in bearing testimony to this fact, there is no escape 
from it except by the exercise of an unreasoning dis¬ 
belief. After making all possible allowances for 
deviations from a direct line and the shortened steps 
of tired soldiers, it is impossible to believe that this 
stream could have been anything south of the Ar- 


32 


kansas. The distance by the Atchison, Topeka and 
Santa Fe Railway from Pecos to Newton, Kansas, is 
five hundred and ninety-three miles. By the Santa 
Fe trail it is probably about the same. That the 
main body of the army reached a spot as far north 
as that, cannot certainly be a violent presumption. 

From the point where he left his army, Coronado 
must have proceeded in a direction west of north. 
“They had diverged too much towards Florida/’ 
says Castaneda. The time occupied in the march by 
the detachment is uncertain; Castaneda gives it as 
forty-eight days, while Coronado says in one place 
that it was forty, and in another forty-two days. 
Taking the lowest of these numbers, and conceding 
that it includes also the twenty-five days spent by 
the general in exploring Quivera, and there was am¬ 
ple time to reach the Platte or the Republican River. 

But again, we have the positive declaration of Co¬ 
ronado that he gained the southern boundary of this 
state. “ I have reached/’ says he in his report to 
the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, “ the fortieth 
parallel of latitude.” It is a fair rule for historical 
investigators to take as absolutely true the statements 
of eye witnesses of a transaction, unless there should 
be something contradicting their testimony or im¬ 
peaching their veracity. In this instance not only 
is there nothing affecting the credibility of Coronado’s 
assertion, but on the contrary it is sustained by nu- 


33 


merous corroborating circumstances. Among the 
latter are the descriptions of the soil, the flora and 
fauna of the land of Quivera, which might now 
serve for a report of the resources of Nebraska. 

“ The inhabitants,” says Coronado in his dispatch 
already alluded to, “ are good hunters, cultivate corn, 
“arid exhibit a friendly disposition. They said that 
“two months would not suffice to visit them entirely. 
“In the whole extent of the province, I have seen 
“but twenty-five villages, and these are built of straw. 
“The natives have recognized your majesty, and are 
“submissive to the puissance of their veritable lord. 
“ The men are large and the women well formed. 
“The soil is the best which it is possible to see for 
“all kinds of Spanish fruits. Besides being strong 
“and black, it is very well watered by creeks, foun¬ 
tains and rivers. Here I found plums, such as I 
“have seen in Spain, walnuts and excellent ripe 
“grapes.” 

Jaramillo, one of his lieutenants, writing some 
years after the expedition, says of it: “The country 
“has a fine appearance, such as I have not seen ex¬ 
celled in France, Spain, Italy or in any of the 
“countries which I have visited in the service of his 
“majesty. It is not a country of mountains, there 
“being but hillocks and plains, with streams of ex¬ 
cellent water. It afforded me entire satisfaction. I 
“judge that it must be quite fertile and well suited 


34 


“to the cultivation of all sorts of fruits. For a graz¬ 
ing country experience proves that it is admirably 
“adapted; when we consider that herds of bisons and 
“other wild animals, vast as the imagination can con¬ 
ceive, find sustenance there. I noticed a kind of 
“plum of excellent flavor, something like those of 
“Spain, the stems and blue flowers of a sort of wild 
“flax, sumach along the margins of the streams, like 
“the sumach of Spain, and palatable wild grapes.” 

Castaneda enumerates among the fruits, plums, 
grapes, walnuts, a kind of false wheat, pennyroyal, 
wild marjoram and flax. 

Gomara, another chronicler, says, “ Quivera is on 
“the fortieth parallel of latitude. It is a temperate 
“country, and hath very good waters and much 
“grass, plums, mulberries, nuts, melons and grapes 
“which ripen very well. There is no cotton and 
“they apparel themselves with bison hides and deer 
“skins.” 

It is interesting to compare with these dry cata¬ 
logues, some extracts from Prof. Aughey’s recently 
printed “Sketches of the Physical Geography and 
Geology of Nebraska.” He says: “There are three 
“type species of plums in the state, namely, Prunus 
“ Americana , P. chicasa and P. pumila. Of these 
“there is an almost endless number of varieties, the 
“plums being common in almost every county, es¬ 
pecially along the water courses, and bordering the 


35 


“ belts of timber. These plum groves in spring time 
“ present a vast sea of flowers, whose fragrance is 
“wafted for miles, and whose beauty attracts every 
“eye.” 

“Two species of grapes, with a great number of 
“hybrids and varieties, abound in Nebraska. It is 
“hard to realize without seeing it, with what luxuri¬ 
ance the vine grows in this state. Some of the 
“timber belts are almost impassible from the number 
“ and length of the vines which form a network from 
“tree to tree. Straggling vines are sometimes found 
“ far out on the prairie, where, deprived of any other 
“support, they creep along the ground and over weeds 
“and grass.” 

“Along the bluffs of the Missouri and some of its 
“tributaries, the red mulberry (Morusrubra) abounds. 
“Sometimes it reaches the dimensions of a small tree.” 

“Though nuts are not always classed with fruits, it 
“seems proper in this place to mention the few that 
“abound in Nebraska. First in the list is the nut 
“of the noble black walnut (Juglans nigra)” 

“Nebraska is remarkable, among other things, for 
“its wild grasses. They constitute everywhere the 
“covering of the prairies. Even where old breaking 
“is left untilled, the grasses vie with the weeds for 
“possession, and often in a few years are victorious. 
“ Every close observer, passing through the state in 
“summer, must notice the great number of species 


36 


“and their vigorous growth. I have in my collec¬ 
tion 149 species of grasses that are native to the 
“state. 

“The smooth sumach (Rhus glabra) is common in 
“Nebraska, and the dwarf sumach (R. Copallina) 
“and the fragrant sumach (R. aromatica) are some¬ 
times found/’ 

Coincidences so remarkable as these, certainly 
strongly support, if they do not firmly establish, the 
theory for which I contend. 

Upon this march, for the first time, civilized eyes 
looked upon those two familiar denizens of the plains, 
the prairie dog and the buffalo. The description of 
the latter is graphic and quaint. 

“These oxen are of the bigness and color of our 
“bulls, but their horns are not so great. They have 
“a great bunch upon their foreshoulders, and more 
“hair on their fore part than on their hinder part, 
“and it is like wool. They have, as it were, a horse 
“mane upon their back bone, and much hair and 
“very long from their knees downward. They have 
“great tufts of hair hanging down from their fore¬ 
heads, and it seemetli that they have beards because 
“of the great store of hair hanging down at their 
“chins and throats. The males have very long tails, 
“and a great knob or flock at the end, so that in 
“some respects they resemble the lion, and in some 
“other the camel. They push with their horns, 


37 


“ they run, they overtake and kill a horse when they 
“are in their rage and anger. Finally, it is a foul 
“and fierce beast of countenance and form of body. 
“The horses fled from them, either because of their 
“deformed shape or else because they had never 
“seen them. Their masters have no other richer 
“nor substance; of them they eat, they drink, they 
“apparel, they shoe themselves; and of their hides 
“they make many things, as houses, shoes, apparel 
“and ropes; of their bones they make bodkins, of 
“their sinews and hair, thread; of their horns, maws 
“and bladders, vessels; of their dung, fire, and 
“of their calves’ skins budgets, wherein they draw' 
“and keep water. To be short, they make so many 
“things of them so they have need of, or as many 
“as suffice them in the use of this life.” 

Here, too, is a description, the accuracy of which 
some of us may perhaps recognize. “One evening 
“there came up a terrible storm of wind and of hail, 
“ which left in the camp hailstones as large as por¬ 
ringers and even larger. They fell thick as rain 
“drops, and in some spots the ground was covered 
“with them to the depth of eight or ten inches. The 
“storm caused, says one, many tears, weakness and 
“ vows. The horses broke their reins, some were even 
“blown down the banks of the ravine, the tents were 
“torn, and every dish in camp broken.” The last 
was a great loss, for from the natives they could 


38 


steal nothing, not even calabashes, the inhabitants 
living on half cooked or raw meat which needed no 
plates. 

Our explorers heard of other countries and tribes 
further on, and especially of a great river to the 
eastward of them, which they conjectured must be 
the river of the Holy Ghost, which De Soto discov¬ 
ered, and which was undoubtedly the Missouri; but 
they had despaired of finding gold, and so, in Au¬ 
gust, Coronado, reaching as I think the Platte Piver, 
caused a cross to be erected, upon whose base was 
carved the inscription, “Francisco Vasquez de Co- 
yonado, general of an expedition reached this place.” 
Thereupon he set his face southward, rejoined his 
army and went into winter quarters with the timid 
and submissive people who had learned from his 
sharp sword the doctrines of Christianity. He pur¬ 
posed, or at least he pretended that he purposed, to 
return in the spring and renew his explorations in 
Quivera, “ but,” says the pious soldier Castaneda, “ that 
“was not to take place. God lias reserved these ex¬ 
plorations for others. To us he gives only the right 
“to boast that we were the first to make the discovery. 
“His will be done.” When the spring opened, Co¬ 
ronado had a fall from his horse which caused severe 
injuries, and, recalling the predictions of the astrol¬ 
oger of Salamanca, his superstitious fears were so 
wrought upon that his only desire was to breathe his 


39 


last in the arms of his beloved wife. But the sol¬ 
diers who hated to return and longed to settle on the 
fertile prairies of Quivera, loudly complained that 
his sickness was in great part counterfeited, and that 
it was in truth only the fair wife that drew him 
homeward from his duty. Fifty years afterward, 
Bacon, perhaps with Coronado’s failure in his mind, 
wrote, “He that hath wife and children hath given 
hostages to Fortune; for they are impediments to 
great enterprises whether of virtue or of mischief” 
But whatever the cause, Coronado returned to Mex¬ 
ico, was ill received by the viceroy, who had spent 
more than half a million of dollars on the expedi¬ 
tion,* lost his reputation and his government, and so 
with Donna Beatrix, his beautiful wife, passes out 
of our sight forever. 

One of the discoverers of Quivera, however, lingers 
within our gaze for a short time longer. A Francis¬ 
can friar, John of Padilla, burned to teach these 
natives the doctrines of Christ in a more humane 
fashion than they had hitherto been inculcated; and 
earnest in his desire to save souls, announced his in¬ 
tention of returning to Quivera as a missionary. He 
had all the sincere faith, the dauntless courage and 
the lively enthusiasm of his class; and he would have 
echoed the pious sentiments of one of his brethren 
in the new world, whose devout aspirations, after a 


Three-score thousand pesos of gold, says Gomara, 


40 


concealment of more than two hundred years, have 
just been brought to light. “America,” says the good 
father,* “is a school where one learns perfectly to 
“seek nothing but God, to desire nothing but God, 
“to have his whole thoughts upon God, and to rely 
“only upon the paternal providence of God. To live 
“among the missions of the new world is to live in 
“the bosom of the Almighty, and to breathe only 
“the air of his divine conduct. How fragrant this 
“atmosphere! How fine the holy horrors of these 
“forests! What lights in the thick darkness of this 
“barbarism! The joy of having baptized one sav- 
‘age, who, dying soon after, may go straight to 
“heaven, surpasses all which one can imagine of joy 
“in this world. He who has once tasted the sweet¬ 
ness of Jesus Christ, prefers it to all the empires of 
“the earth. America is not without its sufferings. 
“One is sometimes tortured by so many pains, wasted 
“by such rude labors, environed by so great perils, 
“and so abandoned by human aid, that he finds but 
“God alone. But to lose all to find God is a profit¬ 
able loss, a holy usury. One never encounters the 
“cross, the clouds and the thorns, but he finds Jesus 
“in the midst of them.” 

Actuated by pious considerations like these, Pa¬ 
dilla, with a few followers, returned to Nebraska, 
taking with him horses, mules, sheep, fowls and the 


* Pere Claude Allouez. 


41 


necessary dresses and ornaments for the celebra¬ 
tion of the mass. He was not long in finding the 
reward he sought. Either to possess themselves of 
his humble chattels, or because they resented his de¬ 
termination to preach to a tribe with which they 
were at war, the natives soon bestowed upon him the 
crown of martyrdom; his companions betook them¬ 
selves to more civilized regions, and the darkness of 
barbarism again for more than two hundred years 
settled down over the land of Quivera. 

Near the margin of the Pecos River, in a little 
crevice between the rocks, and among bones gnawed 
by the wolves, there were found, some ten or twelve 
years since, the helmet, gorget and breastplate of a 
Spanish soldier. Straying perhaj)s from his com¬ 
panions, perhaps wounded in a skirmish, perhaps 
sick and forsaken, he had crawled to this rude ref¬ 
uge ; and far from the fragrant gardens of Seville, 
and the gay vineyards of Malaga, had died alone. 
The camp fires of Quivera were consumed more than 
three centuries ago; the bones of the profane Moor 
and the self-devoted Turk have bleached in the sun¬ 
shine and decayed; the seven cities of Cibola have 
vanished; the cross of Coronado has mouldered into 
dust, and these rusted relics are all that remain of 
that march through the desert and the discovery of 
Nebraska. 


42 


Note. —The student of Spanish conquests in America will, 
of course, understand that the suggestion that this armor be¬ 
longed to a soldier of Coronado’s expedition is merely fanci¬ 
ful. It is, however, by no means, an impossible surmise; 
though it must be admitted that defensive armor was used in 
America against the rude missiles of the natives, long after 
the use of gunpowder had banished it from European war¬ 
fare. 

Since the delivery of this lecture, an antique stirrup, of the 
exact shape and character of those used for centuries by Moor¬ 
ish horsemen, has been found near the Republican, at a spot 
about seven miles north of Riverton, in Franklin County. It 
was buried so deep in the ground as to preclude the idea that 
it had been covered by natural causes, and its presence there 
may afford a curious subject of conjecture. 

It is worthy of note, also, that the engineers of the new 
branch of the Union Pacific Railwajq now building northward 
along one of the forks of the Loup, report numerous ancient 
mounds along their route, and many evidences of once popu¬ 
lous cities. Specimens of the ancient pottery, with the shards 
of which the ground is thickly strewn, are almost identical 
with those still to be found at Pecos and other cities in New 
Mexico. ‘This fact is peculiarly interesting in view of one of 
the statements of the Turk, just before his execution, to the 
exasperated Spaniards, that the cities to which he was con¬ 
ducting them, “were still beyond.” 










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